All I want for Christmas is a hybrid cloud

 

 

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Dear Santa,

 

I hope you and the reindeers are as excited as I am about Christmas! Make sure you get plenty of rest between now and then, so you can deliver all those lovely presents all over the world on Christmas Eve.

 

I’ve thought a lot about what I want for Christmas, and have finally made a decision. This Christmas all I want is a hybrid cloud. I’ve heard so much about them, and lots of people either already have them or are getting them soon, and I want to join the fun!

 

I really want a hybrid cloud because of the benefits it brings: increased scalability, improved security, better resource allocation, better availability and resiliency, and it’s much more cost-effective. And who wouldn’t want that! I hope I wake up on Christmas morning with a lovely new hybrid cloud infrastructure! I just hope you can fit it on your sleigh.

 

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I think Santa’s got some work to do to get me a hybrid cloud infrastructure for Christmas! But the point made above about lots of people going down the hybrid route is true: the recent Right Scale 2015 State of the Cloud Report revealed that 82% of businesses have a hybrid cloud strategy in place. That figure is up from 74% the year before.

 

That’s because businesses are attracted by the cost savings it can offer, as well as the other benefits mentioned in my letter to Santa above. But they also don’t want to trade-off control in order to realise these benefits; they want to maintain the same visibility, security and control of a traditional infrastructure.

 

The key to a good hybrid environment is the ability to unify all the hardware, software and managed services resources that make up both on-premises and cloud environments. This combination of physical and virtual resources makes it easier to transition workloads to the cloud as and when needed.

 

Now, cloud is regularly considered a security risk for organisations. And that’s fair, to some extent: cloud computing and increased mobility has meant enterprise perimeters have changed; applications are now accessed from a variety of environments and from different devices (both corporate and personal) and locations. But having a hybrid environment means security processes and protocols that apply on-premises can be extended to the cloud, protecting your users - and your data - wherever they are.

 

This approach not only secures cloud-based, web-based, and virtual applications but also ensures high availability and reliable access.

 

Hybrid clouds are the best of both worlds, all the benefits of cloud computing without sacrificing security, flexibility, or cost savings. However, organisations must consider what it takes to ensure applications and services there are treated the same way as on-premises infrastructure, so they can embrace a hybrid cloud with the same confidence as they approach their own data centre. 

 

Thanks Santa, and have a great Christmas folks!